


Social Cookies

by EmuSam



Series: If they teamed up, they could take over the world [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Feminism, Gen, Nobel Prize, Rosalind Franklin - Freeform, Social Media, girl scout cookies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmuSam/pseuds/EmuSam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you give an MRA a cookie, he’ll take all the Nobel Prizes. If you give Darcy Lewis a Twitter account and a goal, she’ll take over the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Cookies

After a conference, Jan Van Dyne, Betty Ross, Jane Foster, and Darcy Lewis met for margaritas. “I practically grew up in a laboratory,” said Jan. “So what if I do fashion shows? I also do half of Hank’s work for him. I can be a Renaissance woman.”

“Should’ve won the Nobel,” muttered Betty.

“You? Really?” asked Darcy.

“No, Rosalind Franklin. Well, maybe me, too, except I shouldn’t be rewarded for doing that to Bruce.”

“He did it to himself.”

“Do you know how much of the physics I designed myself? How far the biology would have gotten without me? I am a genius; if it weren’t for the ruining a man’s life and the property damage and the being a woman, this would be Nobel-winning work.”

“At least I get some credit,” said Jane. “Even if SHIELD did steal all my research. I get credit for having a politically powerful boyfriend. Sometimes people bother remembering I do astrophysics. The rest of the time, I’m the nuisance they can’t get rid of because Thor.”

“This sounds like a problem,” said Darcy.

“An old problem,” said Betty, and everyone raised their margarita glasses with a “Hear, hear.”

“This sounds like a problem,” repeated Darcy, “and I am a girl with a solution. I might know someone who can help boost the signal.”

“Tony?” said Jan. “I know Tony.”

“I wouldn’t trust Tony Stark with this if he had two X chromosomes. I mean Pepper.”

~

Darcy e-mailed Pepper. Darcy blogged and posted and tweeted comments, generally displaying a superhuman grasp of social media on an individual and cultural level. Pepper increased the amount of attention paid to Darcy directly by retweeting and indirectly by instructing Jarvis to adjust the world’s search algorithms, then dropped Natasha a hint that certain parties were being uncooperative.

“They need a consolation prize,” said Natasha in conference call with Darcy and Pepper.

“So give them a cookie,” said Darcy. “Girl Scout cookies.”

“That can be the carrot,” said Natasha.

Small scale political protests became large scale political protests. Some people experienced democracy in action. Some felt Natasha’s stick.

Some people took months or years to change their ways, and some societies took generations, but they learned that freedom of speech and conscience went both ways. When they spoke carelessly, they were corrected. When they spoke deliberately, they were deluged.

Darcy presented her findings. “They love to blog about how they became a better person. The average time of change in people’s stories is two years.”

Darcy’s was not the only anthology of such blog stories collected that year, but hers was seminal in many undergraduate gender studies programs.

Darcy won neither the Nobel Peace Prize nor the Nobel Prize in Literature, but the Swedish Academy established the Lewis Social Media Prize.


End file.
